step. Their bodies were nearly brushing.
“What do you want?” Because I want you. I think I might do just about anything to have you.
“How come you get to know all my secrets, but I don’t get yours?”
“I am trying to give them to you. What do you think this big confession is about?” Didn’t she see? “I feel like a freaking idiot, telling you that I spent two years mooning over you. Basically, waiting for the moments when I’d see you and you’d smile—or hell, even frown at me because I’d done some dumbass thing that you didn’t like. The best part of my day was when I saw you.” His hands had clenched. “Then you left.”
“After we slept together. You omitted that part.”
“Doesn’t exactly look good,” he rasped as the memory flared between them. “I get you into my bed, then you run from me the very next morning.” A crack slid through his control. “Tell me what I did that night that was so fucking wrong. Tell me…and I can make it better.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “You think I left because you did something wrong?”
“You’re the first woman who has ever ran from me after sex.”
Red stained her cheeks. “I didn’t leave because it was bad. I thought you got that—you know, because of the way I screamed your name when I came.”
She had come for him. Over and over. The contractions of her climax had squeezed his cock and driven him even crazier. “Was it too much?” He’d never demanded as much from a lover. Never taken and taken until they were both so tired they could barely move. “Was I too fucking greedy and hungry for you?” His voice was low. Rumbling. If he didn’t know what had gone wrong, how could he fix it? “I can treat you like a princess next time. I can hold back. If I was too rough, I can be gentle.” He hadn’t just been rough. He’d been nearly savage in his need. Desperate to claim her over and over. He’d wanted her for so long. There had been no holding back.
But Ella shook her head. “I don’t think you do know all of my secrets. I think there is one big secret you missed.”
“Ella?”
“It wasn’t too much. You weren’t too rough.” Her tongue snaked over her lower lip.
His cock jerked. Down, boy, down. We will not fuck this up again.
“The pleasure was insane,” she told him. The red in her cheeks darkened. “My secret is that I’ve wanted you since the day we met. I thought you were off-limits.”
A dull thudding filled his ears. His entire focus centered on her.
“When I quit Shark, that was my chance to go after what I’d wanted. I was mad at you. Furious with you for lying, but I couldn’t start my new life without having that one night with you.”
“So it was some closure shit?” His voice was halting. Too growly to his own ears.
“I thought it would just be a kiss. But then we kissed and everything seemed to explode between us.”
He knew exactly what she meant. When he’d taken her mouth, he’d been lost. “I don’t want to be done.”
Her eyes held his.
“I woke up and reached for you. You were the first thing I thought of that morning. But you were gone. Gone from my bed. Gone from Shark. I knew I had to get you back.” Because he hadn’t wanted to think of his life without her. He’d been desperate. Willing to lie, cheat…do anything necessary to have Ella again.
Maybe that was why he was still talking. Still trying to make her understand. Hope was hard to give up. Even when you knew there wasn’t really a choice. “I didn’t learn about you just by using tech to look into your past.” He didn’t want her to think it had been nothing but him digging for her secrets. His hand reached out and curled around her arm. “For instance, I know you like tulips because one day I convinced you that we had to have a lunch meeting in Central Park. There was a guy selling flowers, and when you saw the tulips, your face lit up. You told me that your dad used to give them to your mom every year on their anniversary. She didn’t like roses. She thought they weren’t happy enough. So he made sure to give her tulips, and because of her—because of them—you’ve always thought of tulips as happy flowers.”
“They…”